IV fluid bags are widely utilized to deliver fluid and medication to patients. In a hospital or other healthcare facility, the IV fluid bags may be prepared by a pharmacy at a location remote from the patient. The IV fluid bags may then be delivered to the healthcare practitioners responsible for the patient's care (hereinafter generically referred to as nurses). The IV fluid may then be administered to the patient. For example, the IV fluid bag may be hung upon an IV pole and fluidly connected for administration to the patient.
Once prepared, at least some IV fluid bags are required to be administered to a patient within a predefined time period. Failure to administer these IV fluid bags to a patient within the predefined time period may cause the IV fluid bags to become outdated and to no longer be acceptable for administration to a patient. As such, nurses must ensure that the IV fluid bags are administered in a timely fashion so as to avoid instances in which the IV fluid bags become outdated and the IV fluid is wasted. An IV fluid bag may sometimes be quite expensive, such as in instances in which the medication to be delivered via the IV fluid is expensive, such that the failure to administer IV fluid bags in a timely manner may undesirably increase the cost associated with patient care and decrease the efficiency with which patient care is provided.
The challenges associated with the timely administration of IV fluid bags may be particularly acute in an instance in which a patient receiving IV fluid requires the preparation of a replacement IV fluid bag to take the place of the current IV fluid bag, such as following depletion of the current IV fluid bag. In this regard, the timing with which the replacement IV fluid bag must be prepared and delivered may be difficult to mesh with the depletion of the current IV fluid bag. For example, the physician's orders may indicate that an IV fluid bag is to be prepared and administered to the patient in accordance with a predefined schedule, such as every four hours, every eight hours, or the like. As such, the pharmacy may prepare the IV fluid bag in accordance with the predefined schedule. However, the rate at which the patient actually receives the IV fluid may vary from that anticipated by the physician such that the patient may not require replacement IV fluid bags as frequently as anticipated by the predefined schedule. Thus, the replacement IV fluid bags prepared by the pharmacy in accordance with the predefined schedule may be delivered to the nurses responsible for the patient's care, but may then be stored awaiting the completion of the prior IV fluid bag prior to administration of the replacement IV fluid bag. Depending upon the length of time that the replacement IV fluid bag is stored, the replacement IV fluid bag may sometime become outdated.
In other instances, IV fluid bags are not prepared and delivered in accordance with a predefined schedule, but are replaced upon request by a nurse responsible for a patient's care. In this regard, a nurse may monitor the IV fluid intake of a patient and may request that the pharmacy prepare and deliver a replacement IV fluid bag, such as in an instance in which the administration of the current IV fluid bag is near completion. However, a nurse generally has many responsibilities in addition to monitoring the IV fluid intake of a patient and, as such, may be challenged to notify the pharmacy of a need to prepare a replacement IV fluid bag at the proper time, that is, not too soon such that the replacement IV fluid bag must be stored for too long of time prior to administration to the patient and too late such that the pharmacy will not have sufficient time to prepare and deliver the IV fluid bag prior to the completion of the administration of the prior IV fluid bag. As such, the timely preparation and delivery of IV fluid bags to the patient remains a challenge.